


Finding Freedom

by Pandora_de_Romanus



Category: Spartacus Series (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Abuse, Dark, Domestic Violence, F/M, Foster Care, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, MMA, Multi, Sexual Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-04
Updated: 2014-10-04
Packaged: 2018-02-19 21:52:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2404190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pandora_de_Romanus/pseuds/Pandora_de_Romanus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nasir starts his search for freedom in a hospital bed. A good mannered doctor inspires him to fight for his freedom and stand up for himself. He never imagined he would fall in love in the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Nasir

**Author's Note:**

> Not beta-ed. The mistakes are my own, sorry for that.

NASIR

 

It all started when Glaber-Dear landed me in the hospital.  
It was bad. He broke my left arm and kicked in one of my ribs. Normally, he wouldn’t go that far.

But I had actually looked at the tall man’s ass on the street. Since I was going to be beat up anyway I might as well be beat up for something worth it, and that ass was definitely worth it. 

Glaber always thinks I am having affairs even though they are a fruit of his over active psychotic imagination. The first time he came with that kind of theory, I remember, he tried to make me stop going to school. I was sixteen and my brother had died the year before leaving me in the cares of his best friend, so that I wouldn’t end up in the foster system. Glaber a week later thought I was seeing this geek guy and he said it was too early for me to start dating and that the boy was a bad influence on me. I resisted him pulling me off school but didn’t talk to no one after that, afraid he would make stop going. I finished in the end, I loved school. I was so good at English. I didn’t go to college, though. My choices were interesting, but all far away and I had no money of my own. Glaber also had me convinced that I wouldn’t make it on my own so far from him. That was about the time we started sleeping together and I believed everything he told me. I was really stupid at that time for I actually believed he cared.  
I started working in a small market at the end of the street by then. I didn’t want to be a burden. I also had to give that up after a scene he caused. He accused me of sleeping with the straight manager in front of the whole store staff and the clients. Those were the first times he called me a whore publicly and loudly. Not something you forget. Or anyone else for that matter. Getting a job turned out hard after that. I didn’t want to displease him, and I was so desperate to convince him that nothing had happened. 

I loved him so much.

After a time, he wouldn’t allow me even out the door of our home without him by my side. I learned how to cook and through pain and suffering (he would punish me every time I burned something) he turned me into the fucking perfect wife/sex-slave he had so longed to have. 

He was satisfied for a short time.

But soon nothing I tried pleased him enough to keep him from taking out his frustrations on me. He didn’t care about leaving bruises, since no one was there to see. My whole family was dead, and my friends slowly forgot about me since I never called and never went out. Glaber never let me have friends. They all “only wanted one thing from me” according to him and that was sex since, also according to him, I wasn’t good for anything else.

In the hospital was the first time in years I was able to speak to someone other than Glaber, and, heavens, did it feel good.

The doctor was sand-haired and had a kind smile, not to mention very good-looking. 

“You should go to the police.” He said looking seriously at me. Glaber had told him a ridiculous story about a gay bash. That I was walking home and was attacked on the street. I wished for it for a moment, at least I would have been free to walk about. I was glad he was smarter than to believe the lying snake. For after years of having only him for company I’ve had finally understood that his words were nothing but liquid poison.

“I’ve tried that. When they came to investigate he shot me so full of heroine that they were convinced I was a junkie. No credibility to domestic abuse charges. I stopped trying the police after that. I hate drugs more than I hate him.” I answered. I still remembered the feel of the heroine in my veins that got me so high I thought I could fly away. The thing was that I had to face the truth that I was still locked up there when I was lucid after. The after killed all the buzz and it made me hate drugs and myself even more for my weakness.

“I’m Dr. Spartacus.” The blond man said.

“Nasir.”

“How long?” He asked and there was no doubt what he was talking about.

“10 years give or take. It’s not like I count.” I answered and I saw something in his eyes, a rage that was so different from the pity I was expecting.

“When I was in the foster system, I used to count.” He said through greeted teeth and I understood. I was looking at brother. Someone that knew what it felt like. 

“Well, you escaped when you turned 18, right?” I asked with a true smile, I was happy at least he was able to get away.

“A little earlier.” He answered but I knew he wasn’t telling more on the subject. I knew how it could be painful. 

“Good.” I said and the smile that someone could get away never left my face.

“I stood up to my aggressor.” He said looking inside my eyes and to my soul.

“Yeah, that would end well for me.” I said sarcastically looking at the doctor. He was tall and of strong built, I could see that he bowed to no one. He had this air of confidence, of strength. Everything I didn’t. “Probably would disappear for good.” I joked, but that was my true belief. Glaber would kill me if defied him.

“Let’s do it this way. I will assign you with phisio for much more months than you really need. And you will come see me in this address. I treat phisio there. They have physiotherapy which will be the start and then we will go to other things.” He handed me a card that had the following inscription:

‘Rebel’s Gym – Phisiotherapy, MMA, Muay Thai, Kung Fu, Grace Jiyu Jitsu and Self Defence’

I looked puzzled and the doctor smiled knowingly. He looked like someone with a secret.

My curiosity and the desire to get away from Glaber even for a few hours a day made sure that as soon as I was out of the hospital bed and out of the arm cast, I was finding my way to the infamous Rebel’s Gym.

TBC...


	2. Naevia, Spartacus and Crixus

The place was ran down and definitely stood in a bad part of town. I wasn’t afraid. The worst that could happen to me waited at home, dying from getting mugged was too ironic for it to scare. 

The sign was almost a perfect replica of the business card, black and white with bold arial black letters. 

I walked through the doors and there was no receptionist, no signs to where I should go. The door opened directly to the training area, and there were a lot of people there.

Huge guys, piled with muscle, hitting things, or each other.

I felt out of place. I was small, weak and afraid. I was nothing. I was Glaber’s plaything. 

I was about to turn around and leave when I heard Dr. Spartacus’ voice. He came up running to me, covered in sweat, shirtless. Like most of the guys in there. Again, I felt very self-conscious and wanted to run for the door, but he had seen me and there was no way I could be this rude to a brother, someone who understood.

“It’s good to see you, Nasir.” He said catching his breath.

“Good to see you too.”

“Could you hold a second so that I can finish my class with Mira?” He asked. I nodded and looked again. There were three girls there too, amongst the men. And they also were hitting things and people. A blond vicious one, the dark haired beauty Dr. Spartacus had called Mira and a third one that had me stunned. 

Her skin was darker than mine and she, like me, had a few scars on her face. She was small and nimble but she was fighting a man twice her height and three times as wide as her. Still, she climbed him with a mighty jump and snaked her thighs around his neck using her weight to bring him down. It was one of the most amazing things I had ever seen and I felt against my will hope burning in my heart. It was an alien feeling but a lovely one. Maybe, I could do this, I thought to myself. If she could, why not me?

Spartacus approached and followed my gaze. His lips pulled in a proud smile. 

“Her name is Naevia. She is Crixus’ girl.” He pointed at the big dark haired guy fighting her.

He guided me to the back of the building where there were offices and his physiotherapy area. As the door closed behind us he sighed and said.  
“He taught her everything she knows. She made him promise he would. Some years ago she was attacked. 5 men beat her up and raped her, leaving her on the street to die. She survived. Crixus nursed her back to health, but her thoughts at that time were dark and for a moment we thought she wouldn’t make it. You remind me a lot of her at that time. But then she started training. She trained until she was able to hold herself in a fight with any of us. She is her own woman now. And no one can touch her without her consent. Because she turned strong as steel. Because she is a warrior.” 

“That’s why you brought me here? You think I can be a warrior? Doctor, I am a jobless nobody that barely pleases his own man enough to not get beaten up.” I answered, my eyes filled with tears of rage against myself. 

“Nasir, you know it doesn’t have to be that way. You are more than that. Let me train you and I’ll show you. I’ll teach you to be free.” He said, and I was so desperate, and it was such a long time since anyone told me I was worth something that I let him. He reminded me a lot of my brother and in a way I let him fill that role. This empty space in my heart where my brother used to be.

With time and training, I learned that everyone in that blessed place had his own sob story. 

That they were all brothers in the pain. 

I learned that Crixus and Spartacus were in the same foster home when children. That they used to hate one another. That they had another brother called Varro, who was killed by their foster father. Varro was Spartacus’ best friend. I learned that they thought they would share that fate really soon because the man had heavy fists and a merciless humor. I learned that Crixus almost died too, but Spartacus had sworn he wouldn’t let another brother die. I learned they stood up to the man together and though they say he went to jail, I knew the glint they had in their eyes. A glint of freedom I never saw in the mirror. I knew for sure, deep in my gut, that the man was dead and that they had buried him somewhere no one would ever know. I remember smiling at that thought. I remember the hope burning again in my heart as I thought there was still justice in the world.

I trained and I trained. Spartacus and Crixus showed themselves to be merciless taskmasters. I liked it, though. I felt stronger and could perceive that things I once dimmed heavy, stood light upon my hands. Even the bruises and burns that I got from the training with others or the training with weapons were well received. I treasured them, and though Glaber did not know the difference between the bruises he inflicted and the ones from training, I knew well and made sure not to forget, for the ones from training brought only Pride and Hope.

I trained and I trained, but the time came that Crixus would fight in the UFC Tournament in Vegas and Spartacus had to focus on his training. He, then, asked one of his most cherished brothers to keep my training. That was when I met Agron. 

The German, as he was known in some UFC circles, was tall (taller even than Spartacus) and built like a brick wall. He had green eyes and a smile that made my insides flutter at the simple sight. I tried to listen to my reasoning. I was chained to a brute of a man (Glaber) who knew only how to hurt me and who was deadly dangerous. Agron was known to be the very impersonation of Fury in the cage and I wondered why was I so attracted to someone that spelled trouble. When would I learn? For a few seconds I let myself feel like a complete idiot.

“What’s your name, little man? So that I may morn you properly.” He said with a smug grin.

“You wish my death?” I asked. Glaber had beat me up again before fucking me too hard the night before and I was not in the right mindset for training, my own thoughts of dying too close to heart.

“No. I just think you small for the cage.” He said simply. And I was reminded that this man was an UFC fighter and not a scared rabbit like me. That he would think I was going for the same glories warmed my heart.

“I do not aim for the cage.” I said smiling bitterly.

“Huh. So it’s personal.” He said as a vicious smile pulled his lips bordering on the psychotic and a sureness in his voice that betrayed his position as one of the brotherhood. He, like Spartacus, Crixus and Naevia, knew of the pain and for a moment I fell even more in infatuation with that man.

“I want to be free.” I answered. 

“You shall.” 

 

TBC....


	3. Glaber

That night I couldn’t stop thinking about him. 

If Spartacus was all about strategy and boldness, and Crixus about persistence and resistance, Agron’s fighting fundament was passion. He loved to fight. He felt pleasure in spilling blood and in breaking bones. Most people in the internet thought he was some kind of psycho, and even so, that didn’t stop me from feeling my heart warm at the thought of him. Also in the net, I discovered about his brother Duro. 

Duro, according to the website, died in a breaking and entering at the fighter’s foster home when he was fourteen and Agron 18. They said the foster parents and the younger brother were killed leaving the German alone in the world. Foster Parents. The thought of Spartacus and Crixus made me taste bile in the back of throat. He was indeed of the brotherhood.

When Glaber got home I had already cleaned the browser’s history but my lifted spirits after the rough night before irritated him. That night, Glaber used his leather belt on my back and the metal dildo before fucking my bloody ass rawer than it already was, but I didn’t feel that bad. Thinking about Agron was worth it.

I blacked out that night spiting blood, but with a smile on my lips. 

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

When I woke the next morning the sun was more than high in the sky. My back was killing me. The welts and cuts from the belt made my skin burn and bleed, but I could barely move my legs because of the internal injury. I made myself move and crawled to the bathroom. 

I sat on the tub, under the water spray for hours. I didn’t have much strength to do much else. I dried myself as best as I could and stayed in bed. Moving was too hard, I drifted asleep again feeling a bit cleaner and a bit more human. 

That feeling didn’t last long though. I woke again when Glaber arrived. He came to me and looked at me with that false pity in his eyes.

“You know this is all your fault, don’t you? Look at the things you make me do.” He gestured to my back. “Such a beautiful skin. If you keep trying to make a fool out of me, that is what the Fates have in store for you. I don’t like doing it. It pains me so much, to have to do this. To watch you suffer so. I love you.” He said and I thought back to the time I actually believed that crap. Of course I wouldn’t correct him. Not yet at least. He touched my back first with careful fingers than with rough ones that made me scream.

“Look at you. If you screamed that way for my cock you wouldn’t be in this predicament.”

He kissed the hurts on my back and I felt disgusted. If I had had the strength to move, I like to think I would have recoiled. The good thing is that he actually let me be for that night. He knew that if he gave me I hard time I could die. But he didn’t take care of my wounds. They were beneath him and I wasn’t that important.   
I made myself move in the next day. I put some clothes on, got out the door, rode the bus and dragged myself, step by excruciating step to the gym. I felt dirty. That house, that air, stifled my lungs and suffocated me as if I was to drown in clear air. I had to train. I felt human because I trained, because I had met people who got out, people of worth, that made me feel worthy again. I hurt all the way there and people looked at me horrified on the street as I felt my back bleeding through the t-shirt. They certainly must have thought it was some gang fight.

I opened the door of the Gym and all the brothers and sisters inside looked at me. 

I took two steps in and fell on my face. I felt hands on me, so soft, so careful, so different from Glaber’s, and I was looking into a pair of green eyes. Eyes that made me think of grass and fields and crispy mornings on sunny days. They were full of worry but I tried to smile at him. It was Agron.

“Fuck the Gods! What happened to you?” He asked desperate.

“Glaber.” I heard my voice answering without me even realizing I was doing so.

He lifted me from the floor, with such a care as I would not believe a man his size capable of. 

I spent the rest of that day on Spartacus infirmary as Mira cleaned and dressed my lesser cuts until they could bring in the doctor to stitch up the worst wounds in my ass. Maybe with it stitched up, if I ever got someone else, I would feel a little tighter around his cock. I would think and smile bitterly at my own joke. Fuck, I was REALLY screwed up in the head. 

I couldn’t stop thinking of Agron. As Mira and Spartacus took care of me, his big hand kept caressing my scalp, softly running fingers through my hair, calming me against the pain. There wasn’t any anesthetic for the stitches and I screamed like a slaughtered pig.

“You crazy little man! You should have gone to a hospital!” He said in a soft voice not to bother me.

“He would kill me if I went to the hospital on my own.” I said, trying not to look at his despair, it pained me more than the damned stitches. “And if I stayed one more second in that house I would feel the air turn to lead in my lungs.”

With a very low voice, just for my ears, very close to my eyes he said. “Let me take care of you.” He said, and his eyes promised shelter and love I had never once known but in my brother’s eyes.

“No.” I said, and my eyes met his right on, so he could understand all that I could not say with words. “I’ll make Glaber eat that cock of his, you’ll see.”

In a bold move he kissed my lips. In a soft chaste way that was comforting. It also seemed like a promise, sealing our bargain of blood and love.

“I would enjoy watching.” Agron said and I knew I was lost. I smiled sickly at him as if he had told me something dirty. 

“Voyeur.” 

 

TBC...


	4. Mira, Gannicus, Saxa, Sybill and Dreams

The day I spent in the infirmary was good for me to know more of other brothers. Mira for example, had been trafficked to Madrid in a network of brothels. They would approach good looking women saying there was a chance for international modeling. They would then cut all ties of such women with their families and force them to prostitute themselves under penalty of death to their loved ones. Interpol had been able to free her but she decided that she would no longer be defenseless and that no one would use her again. 

Gannicus was another who was at the infirmary at any given break. He wasn’t hurt or in pain, the real reason for it was the shy, kind girl who helped Mira, Sybil. Sybil had helped Gannicus out of the gangs. When his best friends Oenomaus, who was cop at the time and his wife, Melitta, were walking home from the movies they were caught up in a gun fight between gangs in their neighborhood. They died. And they were the only thing Gannicus had that was close to family. He was so angry all the time after that. It was as if the only thing that brought him joy was fighting and killing. So he left home, joined a gang and started the drugs. There he met Saxa and they both would fuck, fight and get high. One day he was ambushed by a rival gang and was left in the river bank to die. That’s when Sybil came. She helped him. Cleaned his wounds, took him to a shelter. She visited him every day and helped him find a job and an apartment. And he fell for her.

When he was steady on his feet he went looking for Saxa. She wasn’t his anymore, but he couldn’t let her there. He found her and helped her the same way Sybil helped him. Sybil helped a lot too. She never said no to someone in need. Gannicus could never forget how she took care of Saxa during her rehab. She would stay in Sybil’s apartment being rude and screaming throughout the night with nowhere else to go since Gannicus had late night shifts and wouldn’t be able to watch her. 

Things got better when they found the Rebel’s Gym. Sybil started as a nurse in the infirmary and Gannicus and Saxa became assistants and trainers there. 

They both still fight, since it is the best thing they both know how to do, but not for blood anymore. Not for peace of mind. They now fight professionally. They fight because turning the fighting to honor brought meaning to their life. The sport shown them a way out and they were thankful. 

Especially, they both loved Sybil for being the kind soul that she is and for having found a haven where they were accepted. 

And in a crazy way they both loved her and shared her romantically. Which was very sweet to watch, for Gannicus was always fun and games, but with Sybil he was sweet and serious. Saxa on the other hand was always vicious and shrew, but with Sybil she was soft spoken and like a cat kept bringing in small gifts.

I wondered if I ever would find someone to protect me and care for me as they cared for her. I thought of Agron, who held my hand all through the stitching, who kissed me softly even when I had murder in my eyes and voice, who was soft, careful and warmed my heart in a way Glaber himself never could, not even in the first years. 

 

~*~*~*~*~

Spartacus didn’t want me to go back there, but I said that he owed me a chance to stand up for myself and for that I had to keep appearances. So Mira drove me there and I got in just in time for Glaber not to notice I was gone. I still looked half dead so he let me be for one more night and that night I dreamed. It was such long time since I had, that I was glad. 

I dreamed of blood, freedom, green eyes and dry lips. 

TBC...


	5. Agron

AGRON

 

The first time I saw him, I was stunned by how beautiful he was. 

His skin was the color of cappuccino and his hair shone like raven’s feathers in the light. His long locks fell to his shoulders, just as black. I’m not the kind of guy who is poetic about anything, but his sheer beauty was a thing that should be appreciated. And appreciate it I did, from afar, obviously. I didn’t even know how to approach him. And I didn’t even know if I should, if it would be well received. 

He never left Spartacus side as he trained and he did nothing but train.

His eyes spoke of sorrow and pain and hate. And I thought it was tragic. For someone that beautiful to have eyes as dead as he had… I would watch from afar and imagine his reasons for punching that punch bag so hard. I used to watch and think of when I was like that. When my hate consumed me and how my friends were the only thing stopping me from becoming some kind serial killer. Spartacus and the Rebel’s Gym being the most prominent reasons. 

I still remember how I ended up on the foster system. I was 15 and my brother 11, we barely spoke any English at all. Our parents died in a car crash due to a snowy road one week into our moving to the US and we landed with Quintus and Lucretia Batiatus in the aftermath. They looked nice at first. But then came the alcohol and the drugs. 

And under the influence they would beat me and my brother up for not understanding what they said, for going to school too early, for needing them to sign this or that, for being in the way, for being annoying and sometimes just because they were high and found it funny. I would throw myself in the fry and let Batiatus hit me if he stayed away from Duro. I would lock my brother in his room and let the man have his fun. It was hell. But we had each other and Duro would take care of me when I was so beaten up I couldn’t even get up from the floor. He made it worth it to survive, he was my reason to fight and keep coming back for more. Batiatus was crazy but he never hit me in the face, and Lucretia dressed me in long sleeves, so no one saw. Kids at school thought we were just freaks. Duro would never leave me alone, he felt it was the least he could do, and no one else dared come close to me, they were afraid. Maybe because I had always a frown on my face, never smiling, and Duro said I was scary. No one could know but, my frowns were mostly because I was in pain most of the time. Duro and I were each other’s world and that brought us hope. It was just the two of us and it was enough. We tried to run for it an unending number of times but we were always brought back kicking and screaming. The Batiatus had to have us when the social worker came to visit to receive the money from the government for keeping us, so they always brought us back. I remember it all, how I hated that people. How I had wished they would just die.  
I remember that I started sucking cock for money when I was seventeen and realized that I would be out of the system a year from then and wouldn’t be able to take Duro with me. I would go to the back alley just outside the dinner that was on the road and get on my knees for money. I couldn’t let Duro behind and we would have to run far and not to get caught by the system.

I told my brother of my plan, but never where the money came from.

We used to dream about our new life. About all the things we were going to do. How Duro wanted to become a tattoo artist. And how I just wanted to find a job to get us an apartment where we could live free and be happy. 

We were getting ready to leave on the day of my birthday. I had my things ready and Duro had his own and he went to grab our money from our secret hiding place. But Lucretia, was smarter than Batiatus and knew something was off. She followed Duro and found our money. The money I had humiliated myself to get. The money for the great escape and she took it all. Duro went crazy for moment and fought her tooth and nail for it and I threw himself to help, but Batiatus came home early that night and found us all fighting in the living room and he was the kind of piece of shit to never go out unarmed. It took one well aimed shot and Duro was down, coughing blood in my arms. 

“I save you this time, brother.” He said as the light fled from his eyes and his grip in my hand lost its strength. The scream that ripped through my throat was inhuman. I wasn’t human anymore. I was an animal and I wanted blood.

I still remember the feeling of losing it so completely to the pain that I advanced on Batiatus with no care for his gun and hit him, again and again, pounding my foster father’s head into the floor until I felt my knuckles on something harder than flesh and bones and it was the tiles on the other side of it. Lucretia’s neck as she screamed was so thin and fragile it had felt like a toothpick in my hands as it snapped and her voice stopped.

It felt good. But not enough to quench the hurt. So I just sat there, holding Duro, my hands covering his face in Batiatus’ blood as I caressed him, crying. He was just 14. 

That’s how Oenomaus found me. He was a cop at the time, and one look at the mess and he already knew what had happened. He cleaned me of the blood and made most of the evidence disappear. He wrote a good report and told the other cops a believable story. I didn’t speak, I didn’t even know what was happening. I was in shock. Actually, I didn’t say a word in the following months before meeting Sura, Spartacus’ wife who was a psychologist and helped me into the sport where I could let out my anger. That’s how I met Spartacus and Crixus at a Gym nearby my new rented apartment which was nearby my new job, on my new life. The life I wanted to share with Duro. 

I made friends with them because they understood. Because they had been foster children. Because, no one but the same Oenomaus had believed in us when we had been alone and half-dead. When Oenomaus died due to the gangs, we decided that the best way to celebrate that man was to do something out of ourselves. Was to create a place where lost people like us could find a place. Putting down all the money we three had combined we started the Rebel’s Gym. Rebels… That was how the old Oenomaus would call us and the thought always warmed my heart.

One by one, the others started arriving. Mira was the first. Then came Naevia. Then Spartacus hired Sibyll who brought in Gannicus and Saxa. Then the paying students started arriving, like Lugo, Donar, Raskos, Chadara... And the business flourished. Especially after Spartacus finished his studies as a phisiotherapist and added that to the services offered at the Gym. Some months that was all that kept us afloat.

I wanted so much to know more about the young man, but I also was so afraid to put my foot on my mouth as I normally did. Though it was easy to get laid thanks to my body, one of the advantages of MMA, I had never had a lasting relationship. Because people never really understood. Never grasped the pain, the abuse, the hate. They never understood how hard I took the lack of Duro. 

That’s when Crixus’ big fight, the one that would be awesome for business if he won, started to approach. And Spartacus had to train him full time and he asked me to take on training the wild little dog, as I had taken to call the beautiful young Syrian that trained in our Gym.

I found out his name was Nasir. And in our very first training session he thought I wanted to see him dead. I explained I thought he shouldn’t get involved in this kind of contact sport, but he told me it was for personal reasons. I didn’t need more to understand that he was training so hard to survive. I didn’t know his story, or the name of his problem but I changed the whole training program. I taught him low blows and things that in the octagon would not be permitted but that could save his life in a fight. At the time I remember thinking about bullying or something in school. He looked a lot younger than he really was and I respected him even more for the strength to fight for himself.

After his first training, I sat by Spartacus during a break in Crixus training and told him that his star student was really a fast learner. 

“He has to be.” Spartacus said and I had the question in my eyes. “That man, for he has not been a boy for many years, lives in Hell. If he doesn’t get strong soon, his partner will kill him and probably we will be none the wiser. He has everything to become a fucking statistic.” He completed sad and angry as it pained him to say as much. I felt it hit me like a bus and my anger burned because of his defeated attitude.

“But we can do something! Gods, we can smuggle him out, scare the douche bag off. Anything! I just can’t stand by and watch it!” I said, desperate. I had no idea at the first look. Nasir held his thoughts too close to chest.

“Agron, he is not Duro. I know they have similar ages and that’s probably messing with your head. But he doesn’t trust anyone. Not even me. He doesn’t believe anyone can or will help him. I offered to denounce Glaber to the cops at the hospital, but the son of a bitch already discredited Nasir as a lying junkie. I’m trying to help him get rid of Glaber himself, because I believe that’s the only way he will let Nasir go. He thinks he owns him. Doesn’t let him leave the house if it is not to go to phisio. I’m doing my best to try and make Nasir believe there is life outside, but I don’t think he believes me.” Spartacus said and he seemed just as desperate. I totally understood how hard it could be to trust a stranger. Especially when the people you should trust the most only hurt you.

“You think he might kill himself?”

“I don’t know. Sura once told me that in these cases the victim doesn’t think they can live on their own without the aggressor. I’m trying to convince him that he has a place here. With us. That we understand. That he can be of the Brotherhood.”

“He would be a worthy brother.”

“He would.”

I spent the following day thinking in what a fucking loss it would be to lose Nasir to death. He was so young and so beautiful. I couldn’t not think that he was as young as Duro would have been. I decided that day that I had to do something, that I would do something. But then Nasir didn’t come to the training in the following day. And in the other he was late. And as soon as he entered Gym he fell from his own feet, his back bleeding through his shirt from unending welts. He was a mess. And I felt my heart be clenched by an iron grip and I saw Duro in his fallen form as I lifted him carefully. I felt the weight of all the “would have been’s” that permeated the end of my brother’s life and I decided I wouldn’t let my doubts stop me from maybe helping Nasir, from maybe having something good, someone good in my life. He could die tomorrow without knowing how special he was. How beautiful and strong and full of courage. 

I offered him protection, but he wouldn’t have it. He wanted to take Glaber on his own and I knew he needed to make his own decisions. Too long someone else had taken them from him. My fear for him, my fear that this could be the last time I saw him, and my admiration for his strength moved me like some silly romantic. He probably should have hated me for that, since he is a victim of domestic and sexual abuse and I should have known better than to do something so harsh and stupid. Denying all those “shoulds” I kissed him on the lips. Soft and slowly and, wonder of all wonders, he just kissed me back, tenderly. 

He trusted me. He said with such a kiss ‘I want to live.’ And in that moment I swore that he would not be taken away from me as Duro had been. I would protect him come hell or high water. I would protect him even if I had to help him hide Glaber’s body, even if I had to go to jail for that man, if I had to die for him. Killing for him would be so easy. 

I knew that if I told anyone else that, they would just tell me it was a new level of screwed up. 

But I told Spartacus and he just smiled at me. 

The Brotherhood has stories paved in blood, loss and pain. 

Nasir’s could not be different. 

 

TBC...


	6. Freedom and an Epilogue

NASIR

The days passed, and I healed. Glaber was in India on a business trip and when he locked the door to the apartment and took my keys with him, he couldn’t have known that I had made a copy of my copy. That I had used a bar of soap and made the copy I needed to get out.

I couldn’t train during that time, so Spartacus made me promise not to go to the gym, but I found myself lonely and depressed. When I felt well enough to walk without ripping myself open again I went back, if only to see my brothers. For I felt relished and valued there. And because I missed Agron and that silly dimpled grin of his like I would miss a limb. 

As I would enter he would always come to me. 

And that is why I fell for that oaf.

He was loud and cursed as a sailor, but hey, I liked him just like that. 

He was so careful, so loving. I didn’t mind dying each time I saw him for if I died at least I would have known what it felt to be loved for real and at least someone would mourn me. 

That in itself was reason enough not to let go. 

My initial plan when I started training was freeing myself. And that in my head equaled leaving the land of the living. My training was more of a vengeance thing. If I was to find freedom in death at least I should take Glaber with me. It was the least I could do for the World. To rid it from that thing that passed as a man and only knew how to cause pain and sorrow. I couldn’t just let him loose to find someone else to terrorize. But as I looked into the grass fields that were Agron’s eyes, I found that maybe, just maybe there was something worth living for.

Glaber gave me exactly a month. A month of peace before he decided to confront me again. 

I was in the kitchen cooking his dinner. He didn’t like to arrive and wait too long for his food.

I was making meat. I had a huge knife in my hands and my thoughts turned dark in that moment. Agron was a terrible influence on me. The knife made me think on how he had taken a few hours to just tell me that if I was to use a knife on someone that I should go for the belly since knives could get stuck in a person’s ribs and it wasn’t a good idea to leave a murder weapon behind. 

Fuck… I hated that Glaber was turning me murderous, that he was changing my soul, that he made me think about it.

“You know, my dear beloved Nasir, your deceitful nature astounds me.” He said in that soft cold voice of his. It grated on my nerves. It felt like the smelly disgusting water that stays at the bottom of the trash can when they take the organic bag away. I held on to the knife and something in my gut told me ‘today is the day.’

“And to think you have such little opinion on my intelligence as to think I would not notice.” He went on, pausing and moving around the kitchen as if he was making a speech in front of the factory workers, as if it was all well rehearsed, his own personal show. “The way your hand is already up and performing for some time, the many hours you spent on Phisio every day, yes, I have a hidden camera here, my dear, to know about the many hours you were away from our little nest. But all that isn’t as bad as your lifted mood as I came home at night. When you were this little eager twink, you would get like that when we went to bed, but now… Tell me, is it that blond doctor? What has he told you? That he would take care of you? Newsflash, he won’t. You think anyone will give a damn about a good for nothing like you? Your cooking is barely edible, you don’t have a degree, you don’t have a job, you can barely do what you are told! Nasir, don’t lie to yourself. No one likes old whores. Especially unfaithful damaged ones like you.” He finished, sneering at me and in another time it would have brought me to tears. I just felt a strange cold in my heart. As something had died inside me. Something had indeed, my old gullible self. My weak and subservient me.

“You want to know if it is him, Glaber-dear? I bet you are dying to know which cock was up my ass that left me so damn pleased with myself that I didn’t care how hard you fucked me, or how bad you hurt me. Your sickness is just. Like. that. You just hate to lose, to not be in control. If you want to know, I’ll tell you. It could be him. It could be him, it could be his friends, his co-workers, the cute female nurse that treated me in the hospital. It could be anyone. Any man or woman in the street that looked my way and I would lay with him or her just for the pleasure of them NOT BEING YOU. Congratulations! You’ve done the impossible. You’ve corrupted every good thing I ever felt for you. You corrupted my very soul.”

“Should I be scared?” He said sarcastically and I hated him even more. 

“That depends.” I said, he raised an eyebrow as if waiting for a threat from me. But that was not my nature. I sighed. I decided to be myself no matter how tainted he had turned me. If he let me go, no one would have to be hurt. “I’m done with you, Glaber, and I’m leaving.” I said tiredly. This was my last shot at doing it the normal way.

He out right laughed in my face, long and hysterically. He closed a fist and hit me hard in the face. I wasn’t expecting it so soon and I went to the floor with the force of the impact dropping the knife that fell under the table.

“You are a silly sad creature, Nasir.” He said lifting me from the floor by my hair as he often did. But this time it would be different. This time instead of waiting for the blows to my stomach, I protected myself with my forearms and knee. I used my raised leg to kick his side. He was so surprised that he released me. His eyes were pure hatred and I knew that he would try to make me pay dearly for that. 

He advanced on me with his fists again but the second time it happened I was ready for him. My guard was high and no blows got to my face or body. He had size in his side but I decided to play my strengths hitting his kidneys, liver and stomach as many times as I could, moving around as much as I could to avoid his fists. He kept trying to hit my face, but I was swift on my feet and kept hitting his internal organs until he puked blood. I was winning.

“You little shit!” Screamed Glaber as he ran to me another time, his rage renewed and it caught me off guard, for I thought he was at the end of his fight. He grabbed me, then, and hit my head with as much force as he could in the kitchen counter. I fell to the ground, feeling my vision cloud at the edges and as he approached I thought I was done. He held my throat with both his hands. They closed around my windpipe, cutting off the air, cutting off the hope. I fought still but my kicking was desperate and weak, I tried crazily to stay awake, to draw breath, to find a way, my hands trying to hit him, to reach out for something I could hit him with. 

Something cold and thin lay beside my grasp. In the floor I lay beside the table and the cold thin steel lay beneath, just within my grasp. It was so fast. So simple. Trembling fingers closed around the black wooden handle and the blade of the kitchen knife was sinking into the soft skin under Glaber’s chin. I kept pushing it in until the blade was buried up to the hilt in his head. His eyes went unseeing at the pain, his breath gasping, his fingers slacking around my throat. 

His blood bathed my face and hair, slipping into my mouth filling it with the metallic tang of iron. All I could do was cough air back to my lungs as I still held the knife for dear life. I lay on the floor for what felt like hours trying to breathe and trying to think. I couldn’t for a while. 

As I regained rational thought, what could have taken a few minutes or a few hours, I wouldn’t know, I pushed aside the dead body that fell over me. 

My face and clothes were covered in cooled blood and the kitchen floor was sullied with it. Without knowing what I was doing I started cleaning. I had cleaned and cared for that house for so long that in my weird state of shock, I started cleaning the kitchen floor, and Glaber’s body, and the knife, the counter… When I moved in with Glaber, before I took up cleaning, he had hired this Brazilian cleaning lady that used to wash every surface and had this crazy need to use bleach everywhere. She kind of taught me all I know about cleaning, so I washed everything with crazy amounts of water and bleached everything. 

The kitchen was spotless as I finished. Even Glaber’s body smelt clean and free of bacteria.

I went on and cleaned myself. Washed away the blood and the feel of Glaber’s hands on me. Washed my own clothes. No one was none the wiser. As my neighbors had ignored the sounds of him beating me up before, they ignored the sound of his death. 

I let the cooking things where I usually left them. Sat Glaber’s body on the chair beside the kitchen table and opened the gas from the oven as the skillet cooked the meat I had cut earlier. I left the house behind without taking anything of value with me. There was nothing in that house that I would want to take but the few pictures of my brother I carried in my pocket.

The whole kitchen and half the apartment burned before any of the neighbors called the fire department. Glaber’s body with it.

The cops found me in the Gym in the morning, said I had hit my head and had stayed in the infirmary on concussion watch. Spartacus spoke for me. Said I was there the whole night. My neighbors never had paid attention to me before and said that they had only smelt the smoke when the fire was already out of control. I cried a whole bunch of tears as they told me Glaber was dead. 

All of them were true. 

As Mira and Naevia held me, I cried for all my lost years, all the time I stood a coward before such man. I cried for the loss of my identity, of my personality. I cried for my corrupted soul that made me burn the house and hide my crime with such coldness. I cried of joy as later on I tasted for the first time the shape and heat of Agron’s lips without any guilt.

As all of them I had my secret now. And as they smiled knowingly at me and I returned with the same feel of freedom, I knew I was of the Brotherhood. 

And forever would I stand among them, proud and unrepentant.

 

Epilogue:

AGRON

All the money Glaber had ended up going to Nasir since he was his only heir or something like that. I had invited him to stay with me in my apartment but he refused saying that he needed to stand in his two feet. He wanted to be everything Glaber cut him from being. He went back to school to try night college. And found himself a a good apartment not two block from the Gym. I told him it could be dangerous, but he only gave me that smirk that said ‘I am dangerous.’ And that was a new way of freedom. There was freedom in his clothes, stylish and expensive. And to his ways. He approached Crixus, Spartacus and myself and wanted to put money on the Gym. Crixus denied immediately, but Spartacus was proud to welcome him to the partnership. And even though he hated math, he was organization nazi and the managing was easy. He had all bills paid in time and made things in a way that people didn’t forget to pay us anymore. It was nice. It was good. He was good. And reliable. And also so hot in bed…

We became a thing so fast after Glaber. It was as if we knew one another our whole lives. I could talk about Duro with him without fear, he would talk about Hakim all the time. He understood. I understood. He was calm as water to my anger of fire. But though fire is destructive it is also warm. And though water is calm it can also drown you. And that is how it was with us. We completed each other. I would make him laugh when the darkness threatened to engulf him and he would make me feel loved when I thought I was alone in this world.

He was mine and I was his without closed doors. It was natural. I was Nasir’s Agron and he was Agron’s Nasir. And we are happy with that. And the sex is of course mind blowing. Who would have tought? 

The End


End file.
